2024 AP polls: Naidu's ‘last chance’ slogan vs Jagan’s ‘one more chance’

‘Give us a chance’ is a tired, overused refrain used by politicians of all hues in the prelude to elections in India. As Andhra Pradesh gets set for the 2024 Assembly election, it’s the variations of this phrase that have become the poll pivots of the ruling YSR Congress as well as the principal Opposition party, the TDP.

As Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and Telugu Desam Party supremo N Chandrababu Naidu make an emotive pitch, stoking sentiment as a tool for electoral mobilisation, people-centric issues like employment, industrial growth and water for irrigation have taken a backseat.

Naidu, who has been touring the districts extensively, has set the tone by making a fervent plea to people to give him “a last chance” during his recent road shows in Rayalaseema’s Kurnool district. Jagan, on his part, is fine-tuning the narrative of “one more chance, please” as a counter to Naidu’s “last chance” in the pursuit of winning all the 175 assembly seats by banking on welfare schemes.

Jagan’s success mantra in 2019

In 2019, Jagan swept the polls by earnestly asking the electorate to give him “one chance” for being the son of YS Rajasekhara Reddy, Congress leader and former CM who was killed in a chopper crash in 2009. Jagan, who aimed to come to power with the help of legacy politics, narrowly missed the bus in the previous elections in 2014.

Also read: Chandrababu Naidu: 2024 would be my last election if not voted to power in AP

Subsequently, in the 2019 Assembly election, the ‘one chance, please’ narrative went viral, generating sympathy in his favour and finally made him win against Naidu in that election. Analysts see Jagan’s ‘one more chance’ appeal as a weapon he is drawing from the arsenal of his poll strategist Prashant Kishor, taking a leaf out of TMC’s Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi.

Of politics and ageing leaders

Naidu has been asking people to consider his appeal by keeping in mind the fact that it’s now or never for him in terms of age. Naidu, now 72, will complete 74 at the time of elections in 2024; he will turn 80 by the next election.

Also read | Raj Bhavan tales: Jagan-Harichandan bonhomie vs KCR-Tamilisai feud

Raising the bogey of age, Naidu made light of the criticism from the YSR Congress that he suffers from senility. “I am still hale and fit enough to stay stronger in public life like any one of my age,” he said, while recalling that he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi belong to the same age group.

What lends credence to his assertion is the fact that more than half a dozen leaders from different national and regional parties are Naidu’s contemporaries who are quite active in politics from across the country, an analyst Raka Sudhakar told The Federal. They include: Prime Minister Narendra Modi (72); Karnataka BJP leader BS Yedyurappa (79); Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan (77); Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar (71); RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav (74); Congress president Mallijarjun Kharge (80); Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot (71), and NCP leader Sharad Pawar (81).

Also read: Modi-Pawan meet may scuttle Naidu’s plans of united fight against Jagan

But Jagan is of the view that if he can finish Naidu off in the coming election, his party, bereft of a viable leader, will die a natural death. The ruling party is looking to have its hope realised by basking in the inability of Lokesh Nara, Naidu’s son, to take the baton from his father. Naidu sought to make it emotive by recalling how even his wife Bhuvaneswari was not spared from the vitriolic campaigns by the rival YSR Congress leaders.

The politics of caste

Professor K Nageswar, who teaches journalism at Osmania University, traces the origin of emotive narratives in Andhra’s highly polarised politics centering around two dominant castes: Reddys and Kammas.

The three-and-a-half-year rule of Jagan has seemingly triggered a wave of anti-incumbency in spite of heavy spending on pro-poor welfare schemes. His government is struggling hard to douse the flames of the rising anti-incumbency by stoking regional sentiment in the name of three state capitals (Visakhapatnam as the administrative capital; Amaravati as legislative capital, and Kurnool as the judicial capital). However, it does not seem to be succeeding in its mission.

Also read: BJP’s big win in UP wakes up Jagan Reddy early for 2024 AP polls

Regardless of people’s antipathy, Jagan seeks “one more chance” by harping on his welfare schemes and by branding Naidu as anti-poor. Naidu’s rivals seek to buttress this argument by recalling how he was billed as a harbinger of reforms at the expense of welfare during his stint as the Chief Minister between 1995 and 2004. 

He was later forced to shift to welfare politics after Jagan’s father Rajasekhara Reddy unseated him in 2004 with his populistic schemes of free power for agriculture, Aarogyasri, a free health scheme for the poor, and fee reimbursement scheme for the poor students pursuing technical education.

What underlies anti-incumbency?

The massive turnouts in Naidu’s road shows are a discernible pointer to people’s disenchantment towards Jagan’s governance. But Naidu is failing to tap this by highlighting the failures of Jagan’s government with a blueprint for remedies, said Chandrasekhar Kalkura, a historian and analyst from Kurnool district.

The response to Naidu’s road shows in Pattikonda, Yemmiganur and Dhone are unprecedented. The anti-incumbency factor, which has been prompting people to throng Naidu’s rallies, is embedded with socio and development issues that are miserably failing to find a mention in Naidu’s agenda, Kalkura told The Federal.

The three assembly segments — Pattikonda, Yemmiganur and Dhone — have remained in the realm of resource-rich Reddys for long. Lawmakers from these segments have come mainly from Reddys, barring a very few from other communities, since Independence. This political deprivation has left the numerically dominant backward castes such as Kuruba, Boya and Yadava and Scheduled Castes, disheartened, said a senior government officer from an OBC community, hailing from Kurnool district.

Also read: For 2024 AP poll, Jagan looking to project father YSR as trump card

Although Jagan promised a judicial capital for Kurnool, it has hardly cheered up people in the region. They are fed up with recurrent droughts and denial of a “due share” in the assured waters from the Krishna River to feed the major irrigation projects like Telugu Ganga, Handri Neeva Sujala Sravanti and Srisailam Right Bank Canal. Besides, the problem of unemployment borne out of distress in the farm sector and tardy industrial growth have left the youth restive.

According to Kalkura, if Naidu speaks of the problems associated with irrigation, it would mean that he would end up exposing his own failure of apportioning a share in the Krishna water that comes to Rayalaseema out of diversion of the Godavari water through the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Project implemented during his previous tenure.

Stirring up sentiments

Naidu’s road shows were greeted with protesters who, the TDP allege, were sponsored by the ruling party. The protesters asked Naidu to either support the proposed judicial capital at Kurnool or go back. The TDP leader even remained silent over his brainchild project of capital at Amaravati, apparently fearing the prospect of backlash from people in the other backward regions like Rayalaseema.

Historically, people in Andhra have been sentimental. Under the spell of NT Rama Rao’s film charisma, people broke the Congress monopoly in the early 1980s and helped their silver screen demigod ride to power with a massive mandate. It’s the NTR charisma that still keeps the TDP alive even after his death. Jagan, on the other hand, came to power in 2019 by exploiting people’s sentiment for YSR by virtue of being his son.

In 2024, we will see whether the people of Andhra Pradesh will give Naidu “the last chance” or Jagan “one more chance”.